Begins With The Night
by 0singlesplash0
Summary: For personal reasons, Stefan leaves his home town to travel yet again. A tragic incident leaves a girl broke, as she loses everything, even the one thing that makes her who she is. Now, she has to survive and adapt to her forsaken fate. "Are you sure you want this?" "Trust me, I really do." Will she make it to the end? Or will the obstacles in her path send her over the edge?
1. Surrounding Waters

**Author's Note:** This fanfiction story will not be assembled chapter-wisely. It will contain drabbles, ficlets or parts that are way too long to be called a short story and way too short to be proper chapters. But these will definately own up to its plot as the story matures.

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**Disclaimer:**** "The Vampire Dairies" television series belongs to the CW channel and their producers and developers. **

_Arc 1: Trust, denial and acceptance _

_*Surrounding Waters*_

"I'd been looking all over for you," Stefan is short steps behind the girl sitting at the edge of a bridge, where above that twinkling night lights sparkle like a billion tiny crystals,"Didn't actually get the chance to thank you."

Stefan knows she heard him but she makes no reply. _Perhaps she is even more depressed about her being dead than her own parents. _He decides to step towards her, sit by her side and make her look forward to her eternal life. Ofcourse, he knows that life as a vampire is more of a curse than a gift, but for now he will skip those bitter parts and even sugarcoat some facts if it makes her feel any better.

And so he sits by her side almost immediately after the thought, then gives her a sideways glance before setting his gaze at the drifting waves of the lake.

"You didn't have to do what you did, for me. Saving me has cost you your life, and and-" Stefan stutters halfway through his sentence, not knowing exactly what else to say to her at this point, but the pressing guilt inside of him makes him more determined to speak, "-all I'm saying is that from now and onwards, I'll be there for you-"

At this, she tilts her head as if to look at him ever so slightly. Stefan happens to pick up her movement and gets encouraged to make his promise,"I will help you get through this transition and with any other problems you face afterwards."

The girl then goes back to her previous position and Stefan couldn't tell for sure whether she is looking down her lap or the drifting lake water because currently her dark bangs are shielding her eyes.

There is a long pause and then Stefan could take it no longer. Either she tells him something or he is taking her back to Xander's place. He is not going to abandon a grieving vampire on transition just to give her some space, so she could workout her feelings. That would be very irresponsible and unlike Stefan. Moreover she saved his vampire life only to have her human life get taken away. She deserves more from him. With that reasoning, Stefan faces her again.

"What is on your mind?"Stefan asks, but hardly expects that she will answer.

A gentle breeze settles around the bridge. The girl noisily inhales and exhales a gust of air through her nose, alarming Stefan. "I can't believe I had been holding my breath for so long,"She says in a low voice,"..but breathing, seems so pointless now."

Stefan looks skeptical of whom she is talking to, him or herself, but after a moments hesitation, he obliges. "It's not that bad, you know, not breathing. You'll get used to it, eventually."

"What if I don't? Don't want to.. Look, you've been kind enough to stay with me for this long. But now I think you should leave me be,"she says gripping the bridge railing ever more tightly.

Stefan's eyes and brows narrow slightly,"I'm not going anywhere. You do realize that letting you go now will put others' lives at risk."

"Don't worry, they won't be near any danger for long."

"What do you mean by-" her sudden drop at the lake and the resulting splash of the water cut through Stefan's question as he looks incredously below. The girl involuntarily splashes around her hands for a few seconds and then suddenly makes no movement at all. Her head dips into the water so that none of her can be seen, leaving behind the last few ripples and blobs of air bubbles escaping the surface of the water.

After a few dumb blinks and utter realization of what is happening in front of his eyes, he nods sideways in disapproval while getting up to stand on the rails. He quickly takes off his jacket, leaving it on the bridge, then jumps and delves into the lake water.

The next few motions were quick and hazy because all of it happens underwater. A moment passes and then Stefan is dragging a cold body up in dry land. He removes her hair from her porcelein face with the swipe of his hand. Her closed eyes looks puffy and a hint of red circles her lower lids. Weird how he didn't even hear her cry.

Without wasting anymore time, he gathers his hands together and presses his wet palms against the middle of her chest, where her dress is cropped out in a small hole with dried blood, even though the flesh is intact. There is no way he is going to let her die now. After all that had happened, he could not possibly let her go this way.

The girl is not quite responding to his aid, so Stefan thinks for a second if he should try CPR. But then those hard thumping pressure on her chest makes her vomit loads of lake water that had been blocking her wind pipe. At the sound of her harsh chokes, Stefan momentarily becomes relieved and pulls her into a sitting position.

She chokes out the last of the remaining water, barely keeping her eyes open. Stefan thumps her in the back with his other hand to help but then her body retires from consciousness and settles for darkness.

"Okay, not good," Stefan thinks out loud at the implicating sign. He quickly scoops her up in his arms and heads toward his destination in a flash.


	2. Bone Of Contention

**Author's Note:** This time, the length of the story seems long, though I tried to make it short. I am going to have to look for a beta reader so that I could improve my skills as a writer and ofcourse this story. I will try to make the next few chapters more fun.

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**Disclaimer:**** "The Vampire Dairies" television series belongs to the CW channel and their producers and developers. **

_*Bone Of Contention*_

The girl with the black bangs lay on something that feels soft against her skin. Only hollow darkness filled her mind before, but now this cozy feeling triggers her to involuntarily wonder if she is floating on a cloud. In a multi-colored autumn sky with flocks of birds flying around harmoniously, as a gentle breeze sways her towards a golden heart-warming sun. While drifting on a cloud, her over sensitive ears pick up noises that agitates her vision and hearing.

Suddenly the floating cloud turns into mist, which makes her plummet into a medium, that looks like a vast ocean. And just like that, her semi-conscious dream bursts into oblivion. A surge of adrenaline rushes through her as she feels rather irked than afraid. Unfortunately, for her, she tries to ponder about why she feels this way, but her mind only draws a blank. Infact, she cannot think of anything she should know. She strains her brain for information, but nothing comes to her. Although, the hollow emptiness of her mind is subtly being filled with a passel of sounds and voices of..people?

"I think we should give her another hour. If she doesn't wake up, then.."says a female voice.

"You said it would work,"states a male voice, with rather exasperation in his tone.

"Hey, why are you getting upset at me for? You're the one who couldn't get her to drink in the first place."

"I would have continued to do just that, if you didn't come up with this plan."

"Hey! My plans work all the time,"says the defensive female voice, while the voice sounded louder than earlier, as if she is now very close to the girl,"you'll see, she'll definately wake up."

"Just before you were telling me where to dump her body and now you're-"

The whole faceless conversation were put to a halt when the dark haired girl stirs in her soft cushiony bed. She opens her eyes altogether before quickly shutting them.Her brows furrow instantaneously as her eyes crinkle. _Ah! Too bright! _She wants to go back to sleep again but something is nudging her at the shoulder.

"Hey, sleeping beauty, wake up,"whispers the female voice, gently shaking her shoulder again. But the girl did not budge.

She can now feel the slight weight on her shoulders gone. Aside from the confusing sounds around her, she easily discerns crunching sounds of footsteps of probably..boots, soft pouring sound of water, crunching boots again and then the voice of a male.

"I don't think that would be necessary."

"I wasn't going to drop it on her face if that's what you are thinking,"says the female voice sternly and only that comment makes the girl jump into a sitting position, while struggling to open her eyes,"geez.. do you think I'm that cruel?"

A brief pause and then,"Oh, great! You're up! Here, drink this." The female figure thrusts a glass of water in the girl's hand, who immediately brings it to her mouth and chugs down half the water, while a soft feminine hand sneakily reaches her left arm. The girl's ears detect some kind tape ripping sound followed by a slight stinging prick in her skin, when the unknown figure pulls out something from her arm.

"You could sprinkle some water in your eyes too. It might help-"but before she could finish her sentence the girl already dips her hand into the glass. The female figure assists her politely by taking the glass from her hand while the girl splashes some water in her face. Then gently rubbing her eyes with the back of her wrist, she opens them but rather slowly this time.

Her vision is stinging bright at first but then her sight focuses on two moving figures and the background becomes a little dim._ It is still bright though. _

All is clear now. Too clear. In a more enhanced sort of way. The two figures, who were obscurred by the brightness half-a-second ago, looks perfectly clear to her now. She observes them briefly without paying much attention to the details. Sitting up close near her bed were a red haired lady with a few hardly noticable freckles on her peachy neck and cheeks, who is grinning at her brightly but rather smugly as she glances to her right, and a dirty blonde haired guy with a very recognizable face.

After seeing his face, something very important and soul crushing dawns on her almost immediately. Suddenly, everything in the girl's mind crashes and explodes. She narrows her eyes and brows furiously at him, while her mouth plays a dangerous frown. The pale features of her face already looks shaded with a visible hue of red. At seeing this, Stefan's genuine friendly smile drops while the red haired lady beside him takes note of the former girl's incensed disposition. Dispite that, she does nothing but look between the two with a questioning stare.

Stefan starts,"I know you're probably mad at me right now-"

"Probably?"the red haired lady interjects with a sarcastic tone; but Stefan only looks at her briefly, with a distinct annoyed expression which clearly means 'shut up', before turning to resume justifying himself to the dark haired girl,"-but you weren't at your right mind at that-"

This time the girl with the bangs interjects him as she lunges at him from the bed with a forceful shriek. Stefan is completely off guard when she charges because he honestly didn't expect her to attack, thus getting jabbed in the gut. This rapid action propels the chair Stefan is currently occupying to further wobble, as both it and they fall backwards into the floor with a thud.

Both fell, but Stefan is the one who gets most injured as he cushioned their fall. The girl against his body charges one of her fists yet again, although this time Stefan dodges it and gets hold of her wrists. Both struggle into the ground as one tries to get hold of the other and the other tries to wriggle free.

"Egh..just calm..down, okay?"Stefan advises, still struggling with the girl. She sure is strong already, but not as strong as him apparently.

"You had no right-"the girl over him grumbles, anger raging through her body. A figure emerges and seperates them both by grabbing the rabid girl away from him. Both of her arms are instantly forced to her back, where it is clutched up tightly by strong hands.

The girl with the bangs screams violently as she visibly defies to be tamed down. The red haired lady, undaunted by the girl's response, still manages to grip on. She risks a glance at Stefan, who clumsily lay on the floor in the far side, and speaks in a rather cocky manner," Are you going to just lie there like a broken toy or are you going to get up already?"

Stefan awkwardly hauls himself up from the floor, flinching after pawing the part of his body where it still aches from the impact. Seeing this his friend adds,"Aw, come on. This girl's a baby. It couldn't have hurt that ba-"the mock remark hung in mid-air when a powerful backwards kick casts her away from the girl and crashes into a IV stand next to the former patient's bed,"-aaooww, that hurt!"

The dark haired girl marches heavily towards Stefan until his face is leveled with her own. "How dare you do this to me! You had no right whatsoever to-"

"He saved your life. If anything, you should be grateful not downright morbid,"the red haired lady weighs in with a scrunched up face, while pulling herself up to stand. She is starting to like the girl less and less for her outlandish antics.

"No, I would've been better off if he hadn't shown up there in the first place,"the girl refutes. Something about this statement makes Stefan realize that she isn't refering to the bridge incident, but about the first time they met. _Is she really blaming this on me?_

"I couldn't just let you die like that,"Stefan says in a rather disconcerted tone, which almost masks his hurt feelings.

The girl sneers with narrowed contemptuous eyes,"Who the hell are you to decide? All that I had left was my freedom to make a choice, the right one,"she chokes down a sob and averts her watery eyes to conceal from view,"now you have taken that away from me too." She turns away from them and looks into the distance while an utterly sympathatic Stefan and his moderately tactful friend exchange short quick glances with each other. They intend to give the girl a moment to herself since now she has become less violent.

The girl is momentarily unsure of what to do now, though her thoughts are deep in anguish and fluctuating rage. Her slow altering gaze on the somber walls of the curtain-drawn room settles to a dusty dark brown, oak paneled door with a gleaming golden knob.

This is it. She couldn't take it anymore. She has to get out of here. Away from them. Away from all of this. They won't understand. They can't understand! But it's the right thing to do. It's the only way she could save herself. She has to escape and then she will surrender to death, again.

Stefan and his friend, currently distracted as they seem to process what the girl had just said, that none of them realize what the girl is planning to do next.

The girl abruptly bolts from her place. This sudden action alerts the other two vampires, who are a little too late to stop her now. "Wait! What are you doing?!" she hears one of them shout after her but she is already by the door with a sort of airy speed that startles her for a split second. On cue, the knob turns- door flings open-the girl crashes into a rigid body-immediately recovers from the sudden clash-and rushes out the door, with a whizz cutting through air.


End file.
